56 Million Years of Acorns: The Evolutionary History of the World's Oaks

Oaks are one of the world's great success stories: with an estimated 450 species worldwide, they dominate in a wide range of deciduous forests, savannas, and even evergreen broadleaf forests of east Asia. They are notorious hybridizers, moving variants around so readily that one species may shape the geographic and ecological range of another species, just through gene flow. They feed our wildlife, form homes for hundreds of gall-forming insect species, and serve as the raw material for much of human civilization. Yet until recently, the evolutionary history of the genus Quercus, the oaks, was poorly known. In this talk, Dr. Andrew Hipp, Senior Scientist and Herbarium Director at The Morton Arboretum, will present on recent and ongoing research into the evolutionary history of oaks, from their earliest known ancestors of 56 million years ago, to the present day.